Rains leave some West Texas lakes unfulfilled

Published 5:53 pm, Thursday, July 9, 2015

Lake J.B. Thomas near Snyder is at more than 70 percent full, a depth that hasn’t been reached in 50 years.

Lake J.B. Thomas near Snyder is at more than 70 percent full, a depth that hasn’t been reached in 50 years.

Photo: Brandon Mulder/Reporter-Telegram

Rains leave some West Texas lakes unfulfilled

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Texas’ recent glut of rainfall brought life back to lakes across the state.

Several lakes are at or near capacity after several years. Numerous reservoirs have risen to full capacity while a few are even spilling over.

While many cities rejoice at the abundance of precious water, many lakes of West Texas remain piddling pools still tens of feet below normal levels. Possum Kingdom Lake, west of Fort Worth, has risen to a hearty 100 percent. Hubbard Creek Lake, only 20 miles to its west, sits at 35 percent.

Even further west, the disparity is increasingly stark. While Lake Thomas near Snyder rose from 5 to more than 70 percent in a matter eight months, the same kind of precipitation hasn’t graced O.H. Ivie Reservoir and Lake E.V. Spence nearly as generously. Just downstream on the Colorado, Spence and Ivie languish at 6 and 16 percent respectively.

“Sometimes people see a whole bunch of full lakes and think the drought is over,” said John Grant, the general manager of the CRMWD. “Well you got to look at it on an area-by-area basis. In West Texas, it’s still an isolated type issue, but we’re in a lot better shape than we were at this time last year,” when total capacity of the three lakes were at 9 percent, Grant said.

Between the three lakes under the jurisdiction of the Colorado River Municipal Water District -- Spence, Ivie, and Thomas, which serve Midland and several West Texas cities -- water capacity has filled to 22.5 percent.

“It’s like my mom used to say: location, location, location. These storms have not been general rains, they’ve been very specific,” said Chris Wingert, general manager of the West Central Texas Municipal Water District, which pipes water to several other West Texas towns, including Abilene, Albany and Breckenridge.

“It’s just the tight amount of rain in the right spot,” Grant said.

Last Tuesday, the city of Abilene received more than 8 inches in rain in a single day -- the city’s wettest day in recorded history. However, only a sliver of that downpour fell on Hubbard Creek’s watershed, adding an additional 2.4 vertical feet to the lake. If the deluge had fallen squarely on Hubbard’s drainage area, the lake would have quickly reached full capacity, Wingert said.

Hubbard’s lake level dropped to a vertical election of around 1,151 feet, just feet away from the trigger point of 1,148 feet. At that elevation, the WCTMWD would have taken an unprecedented measure and cut water supplies to Abilene.

In previous drought years, Texas communities have developed new water-wise habits that both Grant and Wingert hope won’t dissipate in light of wetter weather.

“I expect probably in the next month or so you’ll probably start seeing water usage come back up,” Wingert said. “One would hope that they would stay, but I’ve been in Texas too long -- it seems like people stick their heads in the sand once you get a little bit of water.”

Neither of the water districts have yet to see a noticeable change in water consumption by their respective customer cities, and Midland’s usage rate through 2015 has remain consistent, according to city data.

“We’re still seeing lower water use patterns than we did four or five years ago,” Grant said. “Education and water conservation are still on everybody’s mind. … I think two or three months down the road may answer that question. And if they do (change behavior), how much will they water with the increased price of water?”